1Hear, O Israel, you shall cross over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and walled up to the heavens; 2a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard it said, Who can stand before the sons of Anak? 3And know today that Jehovah your God is He who passes over before you as a consuming fire; He will destroy them, and He will bring them down before you; so you shall dispossess them and make them to perish quickly, as Jehovah has spoken to you. 4Do not say in your heart, when Jehovah your God thrusts them out from before you, saying, Jehovah has brought me in to possess this land for my righteousness. But say, Jehovah dispossesses them from before you because of the wickedness of those nations. 5It is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you go to possess their land. But Jehovah your God is dispossessing them from before you because of the wickedness of these nations; and in order to establish the Word which Jehovah has sworn to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. 6And you shall know that Jehovah your God is not giving you this good land, to possess it, for your righteousness; for you are a stiffnecked people. 7Remember; do not forget how you made Jehovah your God angry in the wilderness; even from the day that you came out of the land of Egypt until you came into this place you have been rebellious against Jehovah. 8Even in Horeb you made Jehovah angry; and Jehovah breathed angrily against you, to destroy you. 9When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, tablets of the covenant which Jehovah cut with you, and I remained in the mountain forty days and forty nights (I did not eat bread and I did not drink water), 10and Jehovah gave to me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them was written according to all the words which Jehovah spoke with you in the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, in the day of the assembly; 11then it happened, at the end of forty days and forty nights Jehovah gave the two tablets of stone to me, tablets of the covenant, 12and Jehovah said to me, Rise up, go down quickly from here; for your people whom you have brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly; they have quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them; they have made themselves a molten idol. 13And Jehovah spoke to me, saying, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people. 14Let Me alone that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under the heavens; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they. 15And I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands; 16and I looked; and, behold! You had sinned against Jehovah your God; you had made a molten calf for yourselves; you had quickly turned out of the way which Jehovah had commanded you. 17And I took hold of the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes. 18And I fell down before Jehovah, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water; because of all your sins which you had sinned, in doing that which was evil in the eyes of Jehovah, to make Him angry. 19For I was afraid because of the anger and the fury with which Jehovah had been angry against you, to destroy you. And Jehovah listened to me at this time also. 20And Jehovah was very angry with Aaron, to destroy him, and I also prayed for Aaron at that time. 21And I took your sin, the calf which you made, and I burned it with fire, and beat it, grinding it very small until it was as fine as dust; and I threw its dust into the torrent that came down out of the mountain. 22And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at The Graves of Lust you provoked Jehovah to anger. 23And when Jehovah sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given to you, then you rebelled against the mouth of Jehovah your God, and did not believe Him, and did not listen to His voice. 24You have been rebellious against Jehovah from the day that I knew you. 25And I fell down before Jehovah the forty days and the forty nights as I had thrown myself down before, for Jehovah had said to destroy you. 26And I prayed to Jehovah, and said, O Lord Jehovah, do not destroy Your people, and Your inheritance whom You have redeemed in Your greatness; whom You have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; do not look to the stubbornness of this people, and not to their wickedness and not to their sin, 28lest the land from which You brought us say, Because Jehovah was not able to bring them into the land which was His Word to them; and, because He hated them, He has brought them out to make them die in the wilderness. 29And they are Your people, and Your inheritance, whom You have brought out by Your great power, and by Your stretched out arm.
Matthew Henry - Complete Commentary 1 The call to attention (
Deut 9:1),
Hear, O Israel, intimates that this was a new discourse, delivered at some distance of time after the former, probably the next sabbath day.
I. Moses represents to the people the formidable strength of the enemies which they were now to encounter,
Deut 9:1. The nations they were to dispossess were mightier than themselves, not a rude and undisciplined rout, like the natives of America, that were easily made a prey of. But, should they besiege them, they would find their cities well fortified, according as the art of fortification then was; should they engage them in the field, they would find the people great and tall, of whom common fame had reported that there was no standing before them,
Deut 9:2. This representation is much the same with that which the evil spies had made (
Num 13:28,
Num 13:33), but made with a very different intention: that was designed to drive them from God and to discourage their hope in him; this to drive them to God and to engage their hope in him, since no power less than that which is almighty could secure and prosper them.
II. He assures them of victory, by the presence of God with them, notwithstanding the strength of the enemy,
Deut 9:3. Understand therefore what thou must trust to for success, and which way thou must look; it is the Lord thy God that goes before thee, not only as thy captain, or commander-in-chief, to give direction, but as a consuming fire, to do execution among them. Observe, He shall destroy them, and then thou shalt drive them out. Thou canst not drive them out, unless he destroy them and bring them down. But he will not destroy them and bring them down, unless thou set thyself in good earnest to drive them out. We must do our endeavour in dependence upon God's grace, and we shall have that grace if we do our endeavour.
III. He cautions them not to entertain the least thought of their own righteousness, as if that had procured them this favour at God's hand: Say not.
For my righteousness (either with regard to my good character or in recompence for any good service)
the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land (
Deut 9:4); never think it is for thy righteousness or the uprightness of thy heart, that it is in consideration either of thy good conversation or of they good disposition,
Deut 9:5. And again (
Deut 9:6) it is insisted on, because it is hard to bring people from a conceit of their own merit, and yet very necessary that it be done:
Understand (know it, and believe it, and consider it) that
the Lord thy God giveth thee not this land for thy righteousness. Hadst thou been to come to it upon that condition, thou wouldst have been for ever shut out of it,
for thou art a stiff-necked people. Note, Our gaining possession of the heavenly Canaan, as it must be attributed to God's power and not to our own might, so it must be ascribed to God's grace and not to our own merit: in Christ we have both righteousness and strength; in him therefore we must glory, and not in ourselves, or any sufficiency of our own.
IV. He intimates to them the true reasons why God would take this good land out of the hands of the Canaanites, and settle it upon Israel, and they are borrowed from his own honour, not from Israel's deserts. 1. He will be honoured in the destruction of idolaters; they are justly looked upon as haters of him, and therefore he will visit their iniquity upon them. It is
for the wickedness of these nations that God
drives them out, Deut 9:4, and again,
Deut 9:5. All those whom God rejects are rejected for their own wickedness: but none of those whom he accepts are accepted for their own righteousness. 2. He will be honoured in the performance of his promise to those that are in covenant with him: God swore to the patriarchs, who loved him and left all to follow him, that he would give this land to their seed; and therefore he would
keep that promised mercy for thousands of those that loved him and kept his commandments; he would not suffer his promise to fail. It was for their fathers' sakes that they were beloved,
Roma 11:28. Thus boasting is for ever excluded. See
Ephes 1:9,
Ephes 1:11.
7 That they might have no pretence to think that God brought them to Canaan
for their righteousness, Moses here shows them what a miracle of mercy it was that they had not long ere this been destroyed in the wilderness:
Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the Lord thy God (
Deut 9:7); so far from purchasing his favour, thou hast many a time laid thyself open to his displeasure. Their fathers' provocations are here charged upon them; for, if God had dealt with their fathers according to their deserts, this generation would never have been, much less would they have entered Canaan. We are apt to forget our provocations, especially when the smart of the rod is over, and have need to be often put in mind of them, that we may never entertain any conceit of our own righteousness. Paul argues from the guilt which all mankind is under to prove that we cannot be
justified before God by our own works,
Roma 3:19,
Roma 3:20. If our works condemn us, they will not justify us. Observe, 1. They had been a provoking people ever since they came out of Egypt,
Deut 9:7.
Forty years long, from first to last, were God and Moses grieved with them. It is a very sad character Moses now at parting leaves of them:
You have been rebellious since the day I knew you, Deut 9:24. No sooner were they formed into a people than there was a faction formed among them, which upon all occasions made head against God and his government. Though the Mosaic history records little more than the occurrences of the first and last year of the forty, yet it seems by this general account that the rest of the years were not much better, but one continued provocation. 2. Even in Horeb they made a calf and worshipped it,
Deut 9:8, etc. That was a sin so heinous, and by several aggravations made so exceedingly sinful, that they deserved upon all occasions to be upbraided with it. It was done in the very place where the law was given by which they were expressly forbidden to worship God by images, and while the mountain was yet burning before their eyes, and Moses had gone up to fetch them the law in writing. They
turned aside quickly, Deut 9:16. 3. God was very angry with them for their sin. Let them not think that God overlooked what they did amiss, and gave them Canaan for what was good among them. No, God had determined to destroy them (
Deut 9:8), could easily have done it, and would have been no loser by it; he even desired Moses to let him alone that he might do it,
Deut 9:13,
Deut 9:14. By this it appeared how heinous their sin was, for God is never angry with any above what there is cause for, as men often are. Moses himself, though a friend and favourite, trembled at the revelation of God's wrath from heaven against their ungodliness and unrighteousness (
Deut 9:19):
I was afraid of the anger of the Lord, afraid perhaps not for them only, but for himself,
Pss 119:120. 4. They had by their sin broken covenant with God, and forfeited all the privileges of the covenant, which Moses signified to them by
breaking the tables, Deut 9:17. A bill of divorce was given them, and thenceforward they might justly have been abandoned for ever, so that their mouth was certainly stopped from pleading any righteousness of their own. God had, in effect, disowned them, when he said to Moses (
Deut 9:12), They are thy people, they are none of mine, nor shall they be dealt with as mine. 5. Aaron himself fell under God's displeasure for it, though he was the saint of the Lord, and was only brought by surprise or terror to be confederate with them in the sin:
The Lord was very angry with Aaron, Deut 9:20. No man's place or character can shelter him from the wrath of God if he have
fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. Aaron, that should have made atonement for them if the iniquity could have been purged away by sacrifice and offering, did himself fall under the wrath of God: so little did they consider what they did when they drew him in. 6. It was with great difficulty and very long attendance that Moses himself prevailed to turn away the wrath of God, and prevent their utter ruin. He fasted and prayed full forty days and forty nights before he could obtain their pardon,
Deut 9:18. And some think twice forty days (
Deut 9:25), because it is said,
as I fell down before, whereas his errand in the first forty was not of that nature. Others think it was but one forty, though twice mentioned (as also in
Deut 10:10); but this was enough to make them sensible how great God's displeasure was against them, and what a narrow escape they had for their lives. And in this appears the greatness of God's anger against all mankind that no less a person than his Son, and no less a price than his own blood, would serve to turn it away. Moses here tells them the substance of his intercession for them. He was obliged to own their stubbornness, and their wickedness, and their sin,
Deut 9:27. Their character was bad indeed when he that appeared an advocate for them could not give them a good word, and had nothing else to say in their behalf but that God had done great things for them, which really did but aggravate their crime (
Deut 9:26), - that they were the posterity of good ancestors (
Deut 9:27), which might also have been turned upon him, as making the matter worse and not better, - and that the Egyptians would reproach God, if he should destroy them, as unable to perfect what he had wrought for them (
Deut 9:28), a plea which might easily enough have been answered: no matter what the Egyptians say, while the heavens declare God's righteousness; so that the saving of them from ruin at that time was owing purely to the mercy of God, and the importunity of Moses, and not to any merit of theirs, that could be offered so much as in mitigation of their offence. 7. To affect them the more with the destruction they were then at the brink of, he describes very particularly the destruction of the calf they had made,
Deut 9:21. He calls it their
sin: perhaps not only because it had been the matter of their sin, but because the destroying of it was intended for a testimony against their sin, and an indication to them what the sinners themselves did deserve. Those that made it were like unto it, and would have had no wrong done them if they had been thus stamped to dust, and consumed, and scattered, and no remains of them left. It was infinite mercy that accepted the destruction of the idol instead of the destruction of the idolaters. 8. Even after this fair escape that they had, in many other instances they provoked the Lord again and again. He needed only to name the places, for they carried the memorials either of the sin or of the punishment in their names (
Deut 9:22): at
Taberah, burning, where God set fire to them for their murmuring, - at
Massah, the temptation, where they challenged almighty power to help them, - and at
Kibroth-hattaavah, the graves of lusters, where the dainties they coveted were their poison; and, after these, their unbelief and distrust at Kadesh-barnea, of which he had already told them (ch. 1), and which he here mentions again (
Deut 9:23), would certainly have completed their ruin if they had been dealt with according to their own merits.
Now let them lay all this together, and it will appear that whatever favour God should hereafter show them, in subduing their enemies and putting them in possession of the land of Canaan, it was not for their righteousness. It is good for us often to remember against ourselves, with sorrow and shame, our former sins, and to review the records conscience keeps of them, that we may see how much we are indebted to free grace, and may humbly own that we never merited at God's hand any thing but wrath and the curse.
